The spin machine behind Saudi Arabia’s ‘humanitarian aid plan’ for Yemen
By Dan Glazebrook | Middle East Eye | March 2, 2018
On 22 January, the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen unveiled a new plan to deliver “unprecedented relief to the people of Yemen”.
The Yemen Comprehensive Humanitarian Operations (YCHO) is a new “aid” programme with the ostensible aim of “addressing immediate aid shortfalls while simultaneously building capacity for long-term improvement of humanitarian aid and commercial goods imports to Yemen”.
This will primarily be done through increasing the “capacities of Yemeni ports to receive humanitarian as well as commercial imports” – and all sealed with a whopping $1.5bn in aid contributions. What could possibly be wrong with that?
Starvation politics
The problem here is not only that the funding required to meet the needs created by the Saudi-led coalition is estimated by the UN to be twice that amount. The real problem is that the plan will not, in fact, increase the imports on which Yemen is utterly dependent, but reduce them still further.
This is because the much-vaunted “improvements in port capacity” will apply solely to “coalition-controlled ports”, excluding the ports outside their control – Hodeidah and Saleef – which, between them, handle about 80 percent of Yemen’s imports.
For these, absolutely critical, ports, the plan explicitly states that it wants a reduction in the flow of cargo they handle: by around 200 metric tons per month, compared to mid-2017 levels. Yes, you heard correctly: cargo levels in mid-2017 – when 130 children were dying each day from malnutrition and other preventable diseases largely caused by the limits on imports already in place – are now deemed in need of further, major, reductions.
This plan is nothing less than a systematisation of the starvation politics of which the Saudis were accused by the UN Panel of Experts on Yemen in relation to their closure of Hodeidah and Saleef in November.
Back then, noted the panel’s final report, all Yemen’s ports had been closed following a Houthi missile attack on Riyadh airport. But while coalition-controlled ports were quickly reopened, Hodeidah and Saleef remained closed for weeks.
“This had the effect,” said the panel, “of using the threat of starvation as an instrument of war.” Today, the “Comprehensive Operations” plan envisages making permanent the juxtaposition of wilful starvation of Houthi-controlled territory (in which the vast majority of Yemenis live) and “generous” aid deliveries into coalition-controlled territories.
Spin masters
These are the same “methods of barbarism” as were employed by the British in the Boer war – when Boer-controlled territories were subjected to scorched earth policies of torching farms and destroying livestock – and then revived for Britain’s colonial wars in Malaya, Kenya and, indeed, Yemen in the 1950s-60s. Small wonder Britain is so deeply involved today.
But such a strategy will surely be hard to sell in this day and age. Certainly, the Saudis seem to think so, which is presumably why they have employed a plethora of PR agencies to help them do so.
An exceptional investigation by the IRIN news agency reported that “the press release journalists received announcing the [YCHO] plan came neither from the coalition itself nor from Saudi aid officials”.
It came, along with an invitation to visit Yemen, straight from a British PR agency. The investigation also revealed that the PowerPoint presentation used to introduce the YCHO to high-level UN officials was authored by Nicholas Nahas, of Booz Allen Hamilton, a US management consultancy with long-established links to the US government (including involvement in the illegal SWIFT and PRISM mass surveillance programmes). The consultancy currently has, says IRIN, “35 job listings in Riyadh on its website, including ‘military planner'”.
This role requires the applicant to: “Provide military and planning advice and expertise to support the coordination of joint counter threat operations executed by coalition member nations and facilitate resourcing to enable operations.”
Another PR company involved in “selling” the YCHO, long on the Saudi payroll, is Washington DC-based Qorvis MSLGroup. According to IRIN’s report, the company “booked US revenue of more than $6m from the Saudi Arabian embassy [in the US] over a 12-month period up to September 2017”.
These masters of spin have certainly been busy: their work on the plan has been delivered to “the offices of major INGOs in the UK as well as to members of the UK parliament”, and YCHO accounts have been set up on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube and Gmail.
The YCHO Twitter account has around 10,000 followers; but, says the IRIN investigation, “almost half of YCHO’s followers have less than 10 followers themselves, while some 1,000 followers were accounts created on the same day in 2016 – signs that a significant number of bots or fakes are inflating YCHO’s popularity”.
“All of this,” concludes IRIN, “has fed suspicions that rather than a genuine attempt to help the people of Yemen, the plan is really intended more to gloss over the Hodeidah issue and improve Saudi Arabia’s battered image, or at least a bit of both.”
You would think a strategy aimed at starving the world’s most starved population still further would be a hard sell. But, then, money not only talks, it silences. And $1.5bn is a lot of money.
The UN response
The UN’s own Humanitarian Response Plan for Yemen, issued just two days before the YCHO, on 20 January, had noted that: “Al Hudaydah port, which accounts for 70-80 per cent of commercial imports in Yemen, remains a critical lifeline, despite operating at reduced capacity after being hit by an air strike in August 2015.”
The UN statement added that “the extended blockade imposed on Al Hudaydah and Salif ports on 6 November 2017 significantly threatened this lifeline of Yemenis” and that “only a sustained flow of imports of essential basic goods can avert further catastrophe”.
Yet the cash-strapped UN, facing dramatic budget cuts from the Trump administration, and presumably nervous of saying anything that might jeopardise Saudi-Emirati money as well, officially welcomed the announcement, despite its clear commitment to essentially tightening the very blockade of Hodeidah and Saleef ports which the UN had denounced just days earlier.
Politicising humanitarian aid
Thankfully, the aid agencies do not seem to have been fooled. A joint statement on the YCHO by a number of international NGOs, including Oxfam and Save the Children, stated that:
“We remain concerned that the blockade on Red Sea ports has still not been fully lifted and about the insufficient volume of fuel reaching these, which has led to an increase in the price of basic goods across the country.
“As a result, we are seeing families pushed into preventable disease and starvation because they cannot afford to buy food and clean water. Hodeidah port handles the majority of the country’s imports and cannot be substituted. It is vital that the warring parties commit to keep Hodeidah port fully open and functioning, including unfettered access for both humanitarian and commercial supplies.”
Save the Children’s Caroline Anning explained that the plan “is a misconception – in the publicity around this new plan they say the blockade around Hodeida port has been fully lifted but actually what we’re seeing is that fuel is still being blocked coming into that port which is having a really horrendous knock-on effect around the country.”
And the International Rescue Committee (IRC)’s scathing response – issued with the title “Yemen: Saudi ‘aid’ plan is war tactic” – is worth quoting at length:
“The Yemen Comprehensive Humanitarian Operations (YCHO), announced on January 22, 2018, is neither comprehensive, nor reflective of clear, shared humanitarian priorities… The YCHO politicizes aid by attempting to consolidate control over access and transit points. Rather than endorsing a parallel plan, which was created without broad input from humanitarian actors, the Saudi Led Coalition (SLC) and its supporters, notably the US and UK, should work to ensure the full implementation of the existing UN humanitarian response plan.
“A meaningful response to the world’s largest humanitarian crisis requires more access – not less. At best, this plan would shrink access and introduce new inefficiencies that would slow the response and keep aid from the neediest Yemenis, including the over eight million on the brink of starvation,” said Catanzano.
“At worst, it would dangerously politicize humanitarian aid by placing far too much control over the response in the hands of an active party to the conflict.”
Essentially, this is a plan to tighten the blockade while monopolising access to aid in the hands of the aggressors, presented as a great humanitarian effort, and unveiled just as the coalition begins an attack on the country’s “vital lifeline” which will lead to “a complete horror show” and “near-certain famine”.
Tighten the blockade
On 9 February, the UN announced that 85,000 people had been displaced in 10 weeks due to “surging violence”, particularly on the Red Sea coast, where the coalition have mounted a new campaign to capture the country’s strategically important Hodeidah port.
With the Hodeidah campaign now entering a new phase, this war on the Yemeni population is set to escalate still further. Since it launched in early December, the coalition and its Yemeni assets have taken several towns and villages in Hodeidah province, and are now poised to take the battle to the city itself.
On 20 February, Emirati newspaper The National reported that, in the coming days, “more forces will be committed to Hodeidah as a new front is to be opened in the next few days by Maj Gen Tariq Mohammed Abdullah,” nephew of the deceased former president Ali Abdullah Saleh.
This attack would put the almost completely import dependent country’s most essential port out of action for months, leaving millions unable to survive. “If this attack goes ahead,” Oxfam chief executive, Mark Goldring, told the press when a similar attack was proposed earlier last year, “this will be a deliberate act that will disrupt vital supplies – the Saudi-led coalition will not only breach International Humanitarian Law, they will be complicit in near certain famine.”
His colleague Suze Vanmeegan added that “any attack on Hodeidah has the potential to blast an already alarming crisis into a complete horror show – and I’m not using hyperbole.”
The Yemen Quartet
There is no doubt the war’s British and American overseers have given their blessing to this escalation. In late 2016, the “Yemen Quartet” was formed by the US, the UK, Saudi Arabia and the UAE to co-ordinate strategy between the the war’s four main aggressors.
Throughout 2017, they met sporadically, but since the end of the year their meetings have become more frequent and higher-level.
At the end of November, just before the launch of operations in Hodeidah province, British Foreign minister Boris Johnson hosted a meeting of the Quartet in London as British Prime Minister Theresa May simultaneously met with King Salman in Riyadh, presumably to give the go-ahead to this new round of devastation for Yemen’s beleaguered population.
They met again two weeks later, and then too on 23 January, also at Johnson’s instigation, where the meeting was attended, for the first time, by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. The “economic quartet” – also attended by officials from the IMF and World Bank – convened on 2 February in Saudi Arabia, while Johnson and Tillerson once again met with their Saudi and Emirati counterparts to discuss Yemen in Bonn on 15 February.
Of course, these meetings do not carry out the nitty-gritty of strategic war planning – civil servants in the military and intelligence services do that. The purpose of such high level forums is rather for each side to demonstrate to the other that any strategic developments carry the blessing of each respective government at the highest level.
That the “quartet” met just days before an announcement that the long-planned attack on Hodeidah port was imminent, then, speaks volumes about US-UK complicity in this coming new premeditated war crime.
In the twisted minds of men like Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Rex Tillerson and Boris Johnson – for whom even the liquidation of an entire people is apparently a noble cause in the pursuit of containing Iran – this is what passes for humanitarianism today.
– Dan Glazebrook is a political writer and editor of stopstarvingyemen.org. He is author of Divide and Ruin: The West’s Imperial Strategy in an Age of Crisis and blogs at danglazebrook.com.
This article is available in French on Middle East Eye French edition.
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Culture of concealment: The UK government’s brazen duplicity in Yemen
Will advances in groundwater science force a paradigm shift in sea level rise attribution?
By Jim Steele | Landscapes and Cycles | March 4, 2018
A better accounting of natural groundwater discharge is needed to constrain the range of contributions to sea level rise. The greater the contribution from groundwater discharge, the smaller the adjustments used to amplify contributions from meltwater and thermal expansion.
In a 2002 paper, what is frequently referred to as “Munk’s enigma”, Scripps Institution of Oceanography’s senior researcher bemoaned the fact researchers could not fully account for the causes of sea level rise. He lamented, “the historic rise started too early, has too linear a trend, and is too large.” Early IPCC analyses noted about 25% of estimated sea level rise was unaccounted for. Accordingly, in 2012, an international team of prominent sea level researchers published, Twentieth-Century Global-Mean Sea Level Rise: Is the Whole Greater than the Sum of the Parts? (henceforth Gregory 2012). They hoped to balance struggling sea level budgets by re-analyzing and adjusting estimates of the contributions from melting glaciers and ice caps, thermal expansion, and the effects of dam building and groundwater extraction. However, a natural contribution from any imbalance in groundwater re-charge vs discharge was never considered. Yet the volume of freshwater stored as groundwater, is second only to Antarctica’s frozen supply, and 3 to 8 times greater than Greenland’s.
At the risk of oversimplifying, the effects of groundwater storage can be differentiated between shallow-aquifer effects that modulate global sea level on year to year and decade to decade timeframes, versus deep aquifer effects that modulate sea level trends over centuries and millennia.
Researchers are increasingly aware of natural shallow groundwater dynamics. As noted by Reager (2016) in A Decade of Sea Level Rise Slowed by Climate-Driven Hydrology, researchers had determined the seasonal delay in the return of precipitation to the oceans causes sea levels to oscillate by 17 ± 4 mm [~0.7 inches] per year. Reager (2016) also argued decadal increases in terrestrial water storage driven by climate events such as La Nina, had reduced sea level rise by 0.71 mm/year. Likewise, Cazenave 2014 had published according to altimetry data, sea level had decelerated from 3.5 mm/yr in the 1990s to 2.5mm/yr during 2003-2011, and that deceleration could be explained by increased terrestrial water storage, and the pause in ocean warming reported by Argo data.
Improved observational data suggest during more frequent La Nina years a greater proportion of precipitation falls on the land globally and when routed through more slowly discharging aquifers, sea level rise decelerates. During periods of more frequent El Niños, more rain falls back onto the oceans, and sea level rise accelerates. In contrast to La Nina induced shallow-aquifer effects, deep aquifers have been filled with meltwater from the last Ice Age, and that water is slowly and steadily seeping back into the oceans today.
Munk’s “Too Linear Trend” Enigma and Deep Groundwater Discharge
Hydrologists concerned with sustainable groundwater supplies and drinking water contamination, have been in the forefront of analyzing the volume and ages of the world’s groundwater, providing greater insight into deep aquifer effects. Gleeson (2015) determined, “total groundwater volume in the upper 2 km of continental crust is approximately 22.6 million cubic kilometers, twice as much as earlier estimates. If all 22.6 million cubic kilometers of freshwater stored underground reached the oceans, sea level would rise 204 feet (62,430 millimeters). Via various isotope analyses and flow models, Jasechko (2017) estimated that between 42-85% of all groundwater stored in the upper 1 kilometer of the earth’s crust is water that had infiltrated the ground more than 11,000 years ago, during last Ice Age.
Clearly the earth’s groundwater has yet to reach an equilibrium with modern sea levels. With deep aquifer discharge primarily regulated by geological pore spaces (in addition to pressure heads), the slow and steady discharge of these older waters affects sea level rise on century and millennial timeframes. And, although freshwater discharge from deep aquifers may be locally insignificant relative to river runoff, deep aquifer discharge when integrated across the globe could account for the missing contribution to the sea level rise budgets.
Unfortunately, quantifying the groundwater discharge contribution to sea level rise is extremely difficult, suffering from a low signal to noise problem. That difficulty is why natural groundwater contributions are often ignored or brushed aside as insignificant. Although GRACE satellite monitoring of gravity changes offers great promise for detecting changes in terrestrial groundwater storage, GRACE cannot accurately separate the relatively small discharge of deep aquifers from large annual changes in shallow groundwater. In periods of heavy rains, groundwater increases will mask deep aquifer discharge. And during a drought, any deep groundwater discharge will likely be attributed to the lack of rain.
However, estimates of groundwater re-charge via isotope analyses can provide critical information regards rates of groundwater re-charge and discharge.
Using the abnormal levels of tritium released during nuclear testing in the 1950s, plus carbon14 dating, researchers have categorized the time since groundwater had last left the surface into 25, 50, 75 and 100-year old age classes. As expected, the youngest water is concentrated in the shallowest aquifer layers and the proportion of young water decreases with depth. The estimated volume of 25-year-old or younger groundwater suggests global groundwater is currently recharging at a rate that would reduce sea level by 21 mm/year (0.8 inches/year). Water cycle researchers (i.e. Dai and Trenberth) have made the dubious assumption that the amount of water transported via precipitation to the land from the ocean is balanced each year by river runoff. But if the tritium derived estimates are valid, balancing water cycle and sea level budgets becomes more enigmatic. Clearly a significant amount of precipitation does not return for decades and centuries.
Intriguingly, comparing the smaller volume of ground water aged 50 to 100-years-old versus the volume of water 50-years-old and younger suggests 2 possible scenarios. Either ground water recharge has increased in recent decades, or if recharge rates averaged over 50 years have remained steady, then as groundwater ages a significant portion seeps back to the ocean at rates approaching 1.7 mm/year, a rate that is very similar to 20th century IPCC estimates of sea level rise.
Groundwater discharge must balance recharge or else it directly alters global sea levels. When less than 21 mm/year seeps back to the ocean, then natural groundwater storage lowers sea level. When discharge is greater than 21 mm/year, then groundwater discharge is raising sea level. Without accounting for recharge vs discharge, the much smaller estimates of all the other factors contributing to sea level rise are simply not well constrained.
Higher rates of discharge could account for the enigmatic missing sea level contributions reported by the IPCC and other researchers (i.e. Gregory 2012). More problematic, if discharge proves to significantly exceed recharge, then estimates of contributions from other sources such as melting ice and thermal expansion may be too high. What is certain, the current estimates of contributions to sea level from melting ice and thermal expansion only range from 1.5 to 2.0 mm/year, and those factors by themselves cannot offset the tritium estimated 21 mm/year of groundwater recharge. So, what is missing in our current water cycle budgets?
The Importance of Submarine Groundwater Discharge (SGD)
The recharge-discharge imbalance can be reconciled if water cycle budgets included the difficult-to-measure rates of prolific submarine groundwater discharge (SGD). Freshwater springs bubbling up from coastal sea floors have long been observed. To reliably replenish drinking water, Roman fisherman mapped their occurrences throughout the Mediterranean. Moosdorf (2017) has reviewed the locations and many human uses of fresh submarine groundwater discharge around the world.
Recent ecological studies have measured local submarine groundwater seepages to determine contributions of solutes and nutrients to coastal ecosystems. But those sparse SGD measurements cannot yet be reliably integrated into a global estimate. Rodell (2015) notes that most water cycle budgets have ignored SGD due to its uncertainty, so Rodell’s water cycle budget included a rate of SGD equivalent to 6.5 millimeters/year (~0.25 inch/yr) of sea level rise. However, that estimate is still insufficient to balance current recharge estimates.
However, with improving techniques, researchers recently estimated total submarine groundwater (saline and fresh water combined) discharges suggesting a rate 3 to 4 times greater than the observed global river runoff, or a volume equivalent to 331 mm/year (13 inches) of sea level rise. Nonetheless more than 90% of that submarine discharge is saline sea water, most of which is likely recirculated sea water, and not likely to affect sea level. Only the fraction of entrained freshwater would raise sea level. To balance the 21 mm/year ground water recharge, between 6 and 7% of total SGD must be freshwater and that amount is very likely. Local estimates of the freshwater fraction of submarine discharge range from 1 to 35%, and on average just less than 10%. If fresh submarine groundwater discharge approaches just 7% of the total SGD, it would not only balance current groundwater recharge, but would steadily raise sea level by an additional 2 mm/year, even if there was no ocean warming and no melting glaciers.
A Sea Level Rise “Base-flow” and Paleo-climate Conundrums
Hydrologists seek to quantify the aquifer contributions to river flow, otherwise known as the “base flow”. During the rainy season or the season of melting snow, any groundwater contribution is masked by heavy surface runoff and shallow aquifer effects. However, during extended periods of drought hydrologists assume the low river flow that persists must be largely attributed to supplies from deeper aquifers. Streams that dry up during a drought are usually supported by small shallow aquifers, while reduced but persistent river and stream flows must be maintained by large aquifers. Using a similar conceptual approach, we can estimate a possible “base flow” contribution to sea level.
When the continental ice sheets began to melt as the earth transitioned from its Ice Age maximum to our present warm interglacial, sea level began to rise from depths ~130 meters lower than today (see graph below). Melting continental ice sheets drove much higher rates of sea level rise than seen today, ranging from 10 to 40+ mm/year. Approximately 6,000 years ago, a consensus suggests the last of the continental ice sheets had melted completely, the earth’s montane glaciers had disappeared, and Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets had shrunk to their minimums. The earth then entered a long-term 5000-year cooling trend dubbed the Neoglaciation. Although sea level models forced only by growing glaciers and cooling ocean temperatures would project falling sea levels, proxy evidence enigmatically suggests global sea level continued to rise. Albeit at reduced rates, global sea level continued to rise another 4 meters (Figure 1 below). Although there is some debate regards any continued contribution from Antarctica and “ocean siphoning”, according to Lambeck 2014 about 3 meters of sea level were added between 6.7–4.2 thousand years ago. That continued sea level rise could be explained by aquifer discharge, suggesting a minimal “base flow” of ~1.2 mm/year from groundwater discharge.
Similarly, during the Little Ice Age between 1300 and 1850 AD, montane glaciers as well as Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, grew and reached their largest extent in the last 7,000 years. Ocean temperatures cooled by about 1 degree. Yet inexplicably, most researchers estimate global sea level never dropped significantly. They report sea levels were “stable” during the Little Ice Age, fluctuating only by tenths of a millimeter. That stability contrasts greatly with the recent rising trend, that has led some to attribute the current rise to increasing CO2 concentrations. However Little Ice Age stability defies the physics of cooling temperatures and increasing water storage in growing glaciers that should have caused a significant sea level fall. However, that seeming paradox is consistent with a scenario in which a “base flow” from groundwater discharge would offset any transfer of waters to growing Little Ice Age glaciers.
Once the growth of Little Ice Age glaciers stopped, and groundwater base flow was no longer offset, we would expect sea levels to rise as witnessed during the 19th and 20th centuries. Such a scenario would also explain Munk’s enigma that sea level rise had started too early, before temperatures had risen significantly from any CO2-driven warming.
Interestingly, assuming a ballpark figure of a 1.2 mm/year groundwater base flow, unbalanced groundwater discharge could also explain the much higher sea levels estimated for the previous warm interglacial, the Eemian. Researchers estimate sea levels ~115,000 years ago were about 6 to 9 meters higher than today. That interglacial has also been estimated to have spanned 15,000 years before continental glaciation resumed. Compared to our present interglacial span of 11,700 years, an extra 3,300 years of groundwater discharge before being offset by resumed glacier growth, could account for 4 meters of the Eemian’s higher sea level.
Recent glacier meltwater contribution to sea level is likely overestimated?
In addition to a groundwater base flow driving the current steady rise in sea level, meltwater from retreating Little Ice Age glaciers undoubtedly contributed as well. But by how much? Researchers have estimated there was greater glacial retreat (and thus a greater flux of meltwater) in the early 1900s compared to now. So, current glacier retreat is unlikely to cause any acceleration of recent sea level rise. Furthermore, we cannot assume glacier meltwater rapidly enters the oceans. A large proportion of meltwater likely enters the ground, so it may take several hundred years for Little Ice Age glacier meltwater to affect sea level.
How fast can groundwater reach the ocean? Groundwater measured in the Great Plains’ Ogallala Aquifer can flow at a higher-than-average seepage rate of ~300 mm (~1 foot) in a day, or about the length of a football field in a year. For such “fast” moving groundwater to travel 1000 kilometers (620 miles) to the sea, it would require over 10,000 years! Most ground water travels much slower. The great weight of the continental glaciers during our last ice age, applied such great pressure that it forced meltwater to into the ground at much greater rates than currently observed recharge. And that Ice Age meltwater is still slowly moving through aquifers like the Ogallala.
(However, its release to the ocean has been sped up by human pumping. Recent estimates suggest that globally, human groundwater extraction currently exceeds rates of water capture from dam building, so that groundwater depletion is now accelerating sea level rise.)
How much of the current meltwater can we expect to transit to the ocean via a slow groundwater route? That’s a tough question to answer. However, thirteen percent of the earth’s ice-free land surface is covered by endorheic basins as illustrated by the gray areas shown in the illustration below. Endorheic basins have no direct outlets to the ocean. Water entering endorheic basins only return to the sea via evaporation, or by the extremely slow route of groundwater discharge. Any precipitation or glacial meltwater flowing into an endorheic basin could require centuries to thousands of years to flow back to the oceans.
For example, in 2010-2011, researchers reported that a La Nina event had caused global sea level to fall by the equivalent of 7mm/year (~0.3 inches/year). That dramatic drop happened despite concurrent extensive ice melt in Greenland and despite any base flow contribution. As described by Fasullo (2013), GRACE satellite observations detected increased groundwater storage caused by higher rates of rainwater falling on endorheic basins, primarily in Australia. Although satellite observations suggested much of the rainwater remained in the Australian basin, sea level resumed its unabated rise as groundwater base flow contribution would predict.
To balance their sea level budgets, researchers assert melting glaciers have added ~0.8 mm/year to recent sea level rise. The 20th century retreat of most glaciers is undeniable, but we cannot simply assume all 20th century glacier meltwater immediately reached the oceans. The greatest concentration of ice, outside of Greenland and Antarctica, resides in the regions north of India and Pakistan, in the Himalaya and Karakoram glaciers. Most melt water flowing northward enters the extensive Asian endorheic basins. Likewise, some of the Sierra Nevada meltwater flows into Nevada’s Great Basin, and some Andes meltwater flows into the endorheic basins of the Altiplano and Lake Titicaca as well as the Atacama Desert. It is very likely much of the current glacial meltwater will then take decades to millennia to reach the ocean and has yet to impact modern sea levels. If the glacial melt water contribution to sea level is overestimated, then, the unaccounted–for contribution to sea level rise becomes much larger than initially thought.
Accurate Attribution of Groundwater Discharge and Recharge Will Constrain Sea Level Contributions
Using a combination of GRACE gravity data that measured changes in ocean mass, altimetry data that measured changes in ocean volume and Argo data that measured heat content, Cazenave (2008) used 2 different methods and both estimated the contribution from increased ocean heat to be about 0.3 to 0.37 mm/year. Jevrejeva (2008) calculated a similar heat contribution. Other researchers suggest thermal expansion contributes 1.2 to 1.5 mm/year (i.e. Chambers 2016). Such large discrepancies reveal contributing factors to sea level rise are not yet reliably constrained.
One of the great uncertainties in sea level research are glacial isostatic adjustments.
Researchers have subjectively adopted various Glacio-isotatic adjustment models with recommended adjustments ranging from 1 to 2 mm/year. For example, although GRACE gravity estimates had not detected any added water mass to the oceans, Cazenave (2008) added a 2 mm/year adjustment, as illustrated from her Figure 1 below. Other researchers only added a 1 mm/yr adjustment.
In the Gregory (2012) paper Twentieth-Century Global-Mean Sea Level Rise: Is the Whole Greater than the Sum of the Parts? researchers suggested the sea level budget could be balanced and the IPCC’s unaccounted for contribution to sea level rise could be explained by making 5 assumptions:
- Assume the contribution from glacier melting was greater than previously estimated.
But greater melting rates were documented for the 30s and 40s, and the likelihood that some glacier meltwater is still trapped as groundwater, suggests the glacier meltwater contribution has been overestimated.
- Assume an increased contribution from thermal expansion.
But ARGO data suggests the contribution from thermal expansion has been decreasing and plateauing.
- Assume Greenland positively contributed to sea level throughout the entire 20th century.
Greenland has undoubtedly contributed to episodes of accelerating and decelerating sea level changes, but the greatest rate of Greenland warming occurred during the 1920s and 30s. Previous researchers suggested Greenland glaciers have oscillated during the 20th century but had been stable from the 60s to 1990s. Although there was increased surface melt in the 21st century, culminating in 2012, that melt rate has since declined. And according to the Danish Meteorological Institute, Greenland gained about 50 billion tons of ice in 2017 which should have lowered sea level in 2017. Clearly Greenland cannot explain the enigmatic steady 20th century sea level rise.
- Assume reservoir water storage balanced groundwater extraction.
But net contributions from groundwater extraction vs water impoundments and other landscape changes are still being debated. For the period 2002–2014 landscape changes have been estimated to have reduced sea level by −0.40 mm/year versus IPCC estimates of contributing 0.38 mm/year from 1993–2010 to sea level rise.
- Assume the remaining unaccounted contribution to sea level rise is small enough to be attributed to melting in Antarctica.
Debatably, Antarctic melting is too often used as the catch-all fudge factor to explain the unexplainable. Furthermore, there is no consensus within the Antarctic research community if there have been any human effects on Antarctica’s ice balance. Regions that are losing ice are balanced by regions that are gaining ice. Claims of net ice loss have been countered by claims of net ice gain such as NASA 2015. Additionally, unadjusted GRACE gravity data has suggested no lost ice mass and all estimates of ice gains or loss depend on which Glacial Isostatic Adjustments modelers choose to use. We cannot dismiss the possibility that unaccounted for groundwater discharge has been mistakenly attributed to hypothetical Antarctic melting?
A better accounting of natural groundwater discharge is needed to constrain the range of contributions to sea level rise suggested by researchers such as Gregory 2012. The greater the contribution from groundwater discharge, the smaller the adjustments used to amplify contributions from meltwater and thermal expansion. Until a more complete accounting is determined, we can only appreciate Munk’s earnest concern. How can we predict future sea level rise if we don’t fully understand the present or the past?
There Is No Humanitarian Crisis in Venezuela, Says UN Expert
Alfred de Zayas: Sanctions and economic warfare aggravate the smuggling of medicines and food on the border with Colombia | Photo: AVN
teleSUR | February 20, 2018
The American lawyer and historian, Alfred de Zayas, an expert in the field of human rights, warned about the use of the term humanitarian crisis to intervene in Venezuela and overthrow the current government.
Alfred de Zayas, the independent expert of the United Nations (UN) on the Promotion of an International Democratic and Equitable Order, concluded after his visit to Venezuela that this country does not suffer a humanitarian crisis, unlike countries in Africa or Asia where there are wars and famine.
“I have compared the statistics of Venezuela with that of other countries and there is no humanitarian crisis, of course there is scarcity, anxiety and shortages but who has worked for decades for the United Nations and knows the situation of countries in Asia, Africa and some of America, knows that the situation in Venezuela is not a humanitarian crisis,” Zayas said in an interview for teleSUR.
The independent expert arrived in Venezuela on November 27 and held meetings with government officials, victims of human rights violations and the violence of the so-called guarimbas (violent protests by the opposition) in order to learn about the political, economic and social situation of the country.
He explained that although many think that the country is on the verge of disaster, as media outlets do, “Venezuela suffers an economic war, a financial blockade, suffers a high level of smuggling and, of course, needs international solidarity to solve these problems.”
He also believes that the international community should work in solidarity with Venezuela to lift the sanctions, “because these are the ones that worsen the shortage of food and medicine, it is unbearable to think that having a malaria crisis in the Venezuelan Amazon, Colombia has blocked the sale of medicines and Venezuela had to obtain it in India.”
The expert affirms that the current discourse of humanitarian crisis on the part of US spokespersons, besides being invalid, only pursues the change of regime in Venezuela, “since 1999, a series of States want regime change in Venezuela , that desire to destroy the Bolivarian Revolution and to repeal all the social laws adopted in the mandates of (Hugo) Chávez and (Nicolás) Maduro.”
Zayas denounced the invisibility of his visit to Venezuela in the dominant media, which in his opinion are not interested in disseminating a complete picture of the situation in this country.
The expert told teleSUR that the normal thing, being a senior official of the United Nations, secretary of the Human Rights Committee and head of the complaints department of the UN High Commissioner, is that when he pronounces on a subject, in general, media such as BBC and The New York Times collect and publish their statements.
However, “in the case of Venezuela both CNN and the BBC have ignored me, it is as if my visit to Venezuela had not taken place, as if I had not visited it”, which qualifies as public manipulation, adding that only teleSUR and Sputnik has interviewed him.
The American historian also noted that certain organizations called “non-governmental but whose loyalties are doubtful”, do not want independent experts, “they want experts to come to the country to condemn, that’s why when they name and know me internationally, they said that I was not the relevant rapporteur to talk about Venezuela.”
The United Nations office received letters of complaint from abroad about Zayas’ visit to Venezuela, in which the points he had to investigate were required, “I considered that an interference with my independence, I am the rapporteur, I determine my program I know what information is relevant to my report, but I do not want the report to be dictated to me and some non-governmental organizations suggested me in an uncourteous way with insulting letters, saying what I had to do when I was Venezuela.”
Contradictions In Seth Rich Murder Continue To Challenge Hacking Narrative
By Tyler Durden – Zero Hedge – 03/02/2018
As rumors swirl that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is preparing a case against Russians who are alleged to have hacked Democrats during the 2016 election – a conclusion based solely on the analysis of cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike, a Friday op-ed in the Washington Times by retired U.S. Navy admiral James A. Lyons, Jr. asks a simple, yet monumentally significant question: Why haven’t Congressional Investigators or Special Counsel Robert Mueller addressed the murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich – who multiple people have claimed was Wikileaks’ source of emails leaked during the 2016 U.S. presidential election?
Mueller has been incredibly thorough in his ongoing investigations – however he won’t even respond to Kim Dotcom, the New Zealand entrepreneur who clearly knew about the hacked emails long before they were released, claims that Seth Rich obtained them with a memory stick, and has offered to provide proof to the Special Counsel investigation.
Let me assure you, the DNC hack wasn’t even a hack. It was an insider with a memory stick. I know this because I know who did it and why. Special Counsel Mueller is not interested in my evidence. My lawyers wrote to him twice. He never replied. 360 pounds!https://t.co/AGRO0sFx7s https://t.co/epXtv0t1uN
— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) February 18, 2018
#SethRichpic.twitter.com/JjAp0n56JO
— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) March 2, 2018
Reminder: Here’s the first letter my lawyers wrote to Special Counsel Mueller regarding Seth Rich. We never received any reply. It’s astonishing considering my first hand knowledge of the DNC leak. https://t.co/TvpVaLsmzW
— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) March 2, 2018
I knew Seth Rich. I know he was the @Wikileaks source. I was involved. https://t.co/MbGQteHhZM
— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) May 20, 2017
On May 18, 2017, Dotcom proposed that if Congress includes the Seth Rich investigation in their Russia probe, he would provide written testimony with evidence that Seth Rich was WikiLeaks’ source.
In addition to several odd facts surrounding Rich’s still unsolved murder – which officials have deemed a “botched robbery,” forensic technical evidence has emerged which contradicts the Crowdstrike report. The Irvine, CA company partially funded by Google, was the only entity allowed to analyze the DNC servers in relation to claims of election hacking:
Is it true the DNC would not allow the FBI access to check server or other equipment after learning it was hacked? Can that be possible?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 5, 2017
Notably, Crowdstrike has been considered by many to be discredited over their revision and retraction of a report over Russian hacking of Ukrainian military equipment – a report which the government of Ukraine said was fake news.
In connection with the emergence in some media reports which stated that the alleged “80% howitzer D-30 Armed Forces of Ukraine removed through scrapping Russian Ukrainian hackers software gunners,” Land Forces Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine informs that the said information is incorrect.
Ministry of Defence of Ukraine asks journalists to publish only verified information received from the competent official sources. Spreading false information leads to increased social tension in society and undermines public confidence in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. –mil.gov.ua (translated) (1.6.2017)
CrowdStrike has retracted statements it used to buttress claims of Russian hacking https://t.co/8AZOvoQl0K
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) March 28, 2017
In fact, several respected journalists have cast serious doubt on CrowdStrike’s report on the DNC servers:
- How To Get To “Reasonable Certainty” on a Russia Finding – Jeffrey Carr, Medium (12.13.2016)
- HERE’S THE PUBLIC EVIDENCE RUSSIA HACKED THE DNC — IT’S NOT ENOUGH – Sam Biddle, The Intercept (12.14.2016)
Pay attention, because Mueller is likely to use the Crowdstrike report to support the rumored upcoming charges against Russian hackers.
Also notable is that Crowdstrike founder and anti-Putin Russian expat Dimitri Alperovitch sits on the Atlantic Council – which is funded by the US State Department, NATO, Latvia, Lithuania, and Ukranian Oligarch Victor Pinchuk. Who else is on the Atlantic Council? Evelyn Farkas – who slipped up during an MSNBC interview with Mika Brzezinski and disclosed that the Obama administration had been spying on the Trump campaign:
The Trump folks, if they found out how we knew what we knew about the Trump staff dealing with Russians, that they would try to compromise those sources and methods, meaning we would not longer have access to that intelligence. –Evelyn Farkas
Odd facts surrounding the murder of Seth Rich
“The facts that we know of in the murder of the DNC staffer, Seth Rich, was that he was gunned down blocks from his home on July 10, 2016. Washington Metro police detectives claim that Mr. Rich was a robbery victim, which is strange since after being shot twice in the back, he was still wearing a $2,000 gold necklace and watch. He still had his wallet, key and phone. Clearly, he was not a victim of robbery,” writes Lyons.
Another unexplained fact muddying the Rich case is that of a 40 caliber Glock 22 handgun stolen from an FBI agent’s car the same day Rich was murdered. D.C. Metro police said that the theft occurred between 5 and 7 a.m., while the FBI said two weeks later that the theft had occurred between Midnight and 2 a.m. – fueling speculation that the FBI gun was used in Rich’s murder.
Furthermore, two men working with the Rich family – private investigator and former D.C. Police detective Rod Wheeler and family acquaintance Ed Butowsky, have previously stated that Rich had contacts with WikiLeaks before his death.
“According to Ed Butowsky, an acquaintance of the family, in his discussions with Joel and Mary Rich, they confirmed that their son transmitted the DNC emails to Wikileaks,” writes Lyons.
While Wheeler initially told TV station Fox5 that proof of Rich’s contact with WikiLeaks lies on the murdered IT staffer’s laptop, he later walked the claim back – though he maintained that there was “some communication between Seth Rich and WikiLeaks.”
Rod Wheeler telling Fox5 his FBI sources linked Seth Rich to Wikileaks. “Absolutely, and that’s confirmed” #RodWheeler #SethRich pic.twitter.com/IGWERgRBkE
— ZeroPointNow (@ZeroPointNow) August 2, 2017
Wheeler also claimed in recently leaked audio that Seth Rich’s brother, Aaron – a Northrup Grumman employee, blocked him from looking at Seth’s computer and stonewalled his investigation.
Wheeler said that brother Aaron Rich tried to block Wheeler from looking at Seth’s computer, even though there could be evidence on it. “He said no, he said I have his computer, meaning him,” Wheeler said. “I said, well can I look at it?…He said, what are you looking for? I said anything that could indicate if Seth was having problems with someone. He said no, I already checked it. Don’t worry about it.”
Aaron also blocked Wheeler from finding out about who was at a party Seth attended the night of the murder.
“All I want you to do is work on the botched robbery theory and that’s it,” Aaron told Wheeler –Big League Politics
Perhaps the most stunning audio evidence, however, comes from leaked audio of a recorded conversation between Ed Butowsky and Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, who told him of a “purported FBI report establishing that Seth Rich sent emails to WikiLeaks.”
As transcribed and exclusively reported on by journalist Cassandra Fairbanks last year:
What the report says is that some time in late Spring… he makes contact with WikiLeaks, that’s in his computer,” he says. “Anyway, they found what he had done is that he had submitted a series of documents — of emails, of juicy emails, from the DNC.”
Hersh explains that it was unclear how the negotiations went, but that WikiLeaks did obtain access to a password protected DropBox where Rich had put the files.
“All I know is that he offered a sample, an extensive sample, I’m sure dozens of emails, and said ‘I want money.’ Later, WikiLeaks did get the password, he had a DropBox, a protected DropBox,” he said. They got access to the DropBox.”
Hersh also states that Rich had concerns about something happening to him, and had
“The word was passed, according to the NSA report, he also shared this DropBox with a couple of friends, so that ‘if anything happens to me it’s not going to solve your problems,’” he added. “WikiLeaks got access before he was killed.”
Brennan and Russian disinformation
Hersh also told Butowsky that the DNC made up the Russian hacking story as a disinformation campaign – directly pointing a finger at former CIA director (and now MSNBC/NBC contributor) John Brennan as the architect.
I have a narrative of how that whole f*cking thing began. It’s a Brennan operation, it was an American disinformation, and the fu*kin’ President, at one point, they even started telling the press – they were backfeeding the Press, the head of the NSA was going and telling the press, fu*king c*cksucker Rogers, was telling the press that we even know who in the Russian military intelligence service leaked it.
Listen to Seymour Hersh leaked audio:
(full transcription here and extended audio of the Hersh conversation here)
Hersh denied that he told Butowsky anything before the leaked audio emerged, telling NPR “I hear gossip… [Butowsky] took two and two and made 45 out of it.”
Techincal Evidence
As we mentioned last week, Dotcom’s assertion is backed up by an analysis done last year by a researcher who goes by the name Forensicator, who determined that the DNC files were copied at 22.6 MB/s – a speed virtually impossible to achieve from halfway around the world, much less over a local network – yet a speed typical of file transfers to a memory stick.
The big hint
Last but not least, let’s not forget that Julian Assange heavily implied Seth Rich was a source:
FLASHBACK:@Wikileaks‘ J Assange brought up#SethRich & said “no” whn asked if it was a robbery|Hey media—TAKE A HINT. pic.twitter.com/sxzi8gB55g
— Kyle M Johnson (@McWhorterJ) May 21, 2017
Given that a) the Russian hacking narrative hinges on Crowdstrikes’s questionable reporting, and b) a mountain of evidence pointing to Seth Rich as the source of the leaked emails – it stands to reason that Congressional investigators and Special Counsel Robert Mueller should at minimum explore these leads.
As retired U.S. Navy admiral James A. Lyons, Jr. asks: why aren’t they?
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USS Liberty Massacre: A Pivotal Moment in the Hostile Takeover of America
By Kevin Barrett | Crescent | Dhu al-Qa’dah 24, 1445
In corporate America, hostile takeovers are commonplace. They occur when an aggressor—a larger corporation or rich individuals—seizes control of a smaller corporation without asking permission.
What few recognize is that the United States itself has been subjected to a hostile takeover. Since the aggressor, the illegitimate settler colony known as “Israel,” is much smaller than the US, the takeover has necessarily been surreptitious.
As of June, 2024, Israel’s gradual takeover of the US has become obvious and undeniable—a proverbial “elephant in the living room.” … continue
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